1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat and light-sensitive recording material and a recording method for color duplicators, color printers, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
For conventional full-color imaging methods, known are various systems of silver film photography, thermal recording (with hot-melting or subliming media), electrophotography, ink-jetting recording, etc. Silver film photography and thermal recording give high-quality images, but have the disadvantage of leaving wastes of developers, ink ribbons, etc. On the other hand, electrophotography requires toner, and ink-jetting recording requires ink.
Apart from the media for such known imaging systems, self-coloring recording media are now studied. One is for a light and pressure-sensitive recording system. In the system, light and pressure-sensitive microcapsules in a form of are first exposed to light to produce a cured part and a non-cured part of the microcapsules and thereafter the non-cured part of the microcapsules are broken under pressure, whereby the colored inclusion having been in the microcapsules is transferred onto paper, or the inclusion, dye precursor is reacted with a developer having been prepared outside the microcapsules to give color images. This is described in detail in the Pre-print for the 1st Discussion Meeting of the Electrophotographic Society of Japan, 1992, on page 47.
Another is for a heat and light-sensitive recording system. For this, TA paper (Thermo-Autochrome paper from Fuji Photo Film) is known. Briefly, in the system, heat-responsive microcapsules containing a dye precursor, diazonium salt are controlled by heat, whereby the contact between the inclusion and a developer and an organic base compound having been prepared outside the microcapsules is controlled, or that is, the reaction between them is controlled to thereby control the dye formation resulting from the contact reaction. Next, the microcapsules are exposed to UV rays so as to decompose the dye precursor. The thus-decomposed dye precursor no more reacts with the coupler, and therefore gives no color. The latter stage is for color image fixation. The heat-responsive microcapsules are meant to indicate microcapsules of which the substance permeability through their walls varies under heat. For full-color imaging in the system, the heat-responsive microcapsules themselves and the diazonium salt to be therein are specifically defined. The details of the system are in Printer Materials and Chemicals (edited by Kyosuke Takahashi and Masahiro Irie, published by CMC, 1995).
In the light and pressure-sensitive recording system for conventional self-coloring recording media, the microcapsules must be broken under pressure, and therefore their size could not easily be reduced. The problem with the system is that breaking the microcapsules lowers the image resolution and roughens the image quality.
On the other hand, TA paper for the heat and light-sensitive recording system requires at least three layers of yellow (hereinafter referred to as "Y"), magenta (referred to as "M") and cyan (referred to as "C"), and requires UV rays having different wavelengths for image fixation thereon. In addition, it requires a thermal head for writing images thereon. The problem with the system is that the image resolution is limited and the writing energy is large.
In that situation, the present invention is to solve the drawbacks in the prior art noted above, and its object is to provide a recording material for an imaging system of heat and light-sensitive coloration combined with light-sensitive image fixation, and to provide a recording method with it.